To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question
M.V. MUHSIN
SMOKING:
Believe it or not! The Supreme Court in the United Sates confirmed last
week the award of damages of US Dollars 50 million (equivalent to an
astronomical Rs. 5,000 million - Rs. 5 billion!) to the family of a
two-pack-a-day smoker who died in 2002 of lung cancer.
The charge against the tobacco company was one of negligence,
misrepresentation, fraud and selling a defective product.
The family was presumably disappointed as they could have got more!
The award was initially US dollars 3 billion by a jury, reduced to US
dollars 100 million by a high court, and then cut in half by an appeals
court. Against this backdrop, today's column focuses on smoking trends.
Rules against smoking, and the effects of secondary smoke, are being
tightened in many parts of the world. The winter in the US and Europe is
particularly nasty to smokers.
Tough anti-smoking laws forces smokers to huddle outside buildings in
the biting cold. To them it's a perpetual Shakespearean winter of
discontent! But the manner in which countries handle this health issues
varies as regulatory and cultural factors play into the equation.
It's also a very emotional matter among smokers and non smokers. It
was only recently that the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced
that it will no longer hire smokers! On its job application form posted
on the internet, the organisation asks the applicants pointedly whether
they smoke.
A WHO spokesperson has reportedly declared that "as a matter of
principle WHO does not want to recruit smokers, as the organisation
encourages people to lead a healthy life".
Dr. Leonard Glantz, a professor of health, law and human rights at
the Boston University of Public Health is furious about the
discriminatory practice.
He argues that it's one thing to ban smoking in the workplace but
quite another to ban employees. Based on this, he argues, that if
Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler
applied for a job, only Hitler the non-smoker among that grouping will
be eligible!
Be that as it may, according to a study by the World Bank on global
trends in tobacco use, 1.1 billion of the world's 6 billion people
smoke. That is about one in three adults.
About 80 per cent are in low and middle income countries where
cigarette consumption having risen steadily in the 20 years between 1970
and 1990, has slowed down a bit.
About a 100 million people in South Asia smoke cigarettes and about
an equal amount smoke beedes. Studies also show that an overwhelming
majority of smokers start before the age of 25.
The writer of this study also indicates that worldwide there are up
to 100,000 young people added daily to the "smokers club", with 80 per
cent in the low and middle income countries.
Studies also show that historically, as incomes rose within
populations, the number of people who smoked also rose. But this trend
reversed over the past several decades where with affluence, smoking
incidence has declined. This has not been the case for lower income
groups.
The correlation between smoking and cancer is now widely acknowledged
as has also the risk to heart diseases and heart attacks. So not
surprisingly, the popular refrain in our homes by nagging wives is "quit
smoking". Annoying as this may be, it's justified.
Studies have shown that within a day of quitting, the body's levels
of toxic carbon monoxide and nicotine decrease dramatically; the sense
of smell and taste improve and cough tendencies decrease.
According to a study by the US Surgeon General, the resting heart
rate begins to drop 20 minutes after quitting smoking and remains that
way for years. It's said that a year after quitting, the risk of heart
disease is reduced by half, and after 15 years, the risk of heart
disease and stroke is close to that of a non smoker.
Quitting smoking for 10 years, it is said, reduces the risk of lung
cancer to half that of people who continue to smoke. And after 15 years,
the risk of heart disease and stroke is said to be close to that of a
non-smoker.
Quit smoking is easily said than done. For those who constantly
battle giving up smoking, a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Caring
Sciences concluded that regular exercise increases the rate of
abstinence from cigarettes.
Quoting a Norwegian study in the Journal Tobacco Control, Dr. Marc
Siegal of the New York University School of Medicine, suggests that even
more than the toxins of smoke, it is the associated poor diet, sedentary
behaviour and stress that appears to correlate with illness and
premature death.
The Norwegian study looked at some 43,000 people over a 30-year
period and found that for those who console themselves by saying that
they are "light smokers", (like one to four cigarettes a day) they too
had poor health outcomes. Siegal says that these light smokers were
three times more likely to die of heat disease than non-smokers.
Going from zero to four cigarettes a day showed by far the greatest
correlation in the study between smoking and associated death rates. Dr.
Siegal advocates that exercise is truly a positive force in the fight
against the temptations of smoking.
While in most parts of the world, people have got more conscious of
the maleffects of smoking, there is much greater need to raise
awareness.
Sri Lanka is no exception. In the United States, where some 25 per
cent of adults smoke, there are many organisations that are actively
engaged in the fight against smoking and to support those who want to
quit.
For instance, there is the American Legacy Foundation which offers a
range of quit smoking programmes. Nicotine Anonymous, offers support and
recovery to achieve abstinence from nicotine. Smokefree.gov offers
online step-by-step cessation guide, telephone quit lines and
publications.
Let's take a cue from the US as we raise the stakes on a more
aggressive anti-smoking campaign. |